[avahi] avahi not publishing ssh/sftp records

[Janos Farkas]

Hi!

I have two, software-wise quite similar machines, running custom
built, and reasonably (but not always exactly) the same version of
packages, kernels, etc.

There are two main differences: one of them is an old K6 acting as a
gateway via a bunch of vlan interfaces, the other is a much more
recent Athlon having a single ethernet interface (well, active).

The thing that bothers me:

avahi-browse -at looks the same on both machines (apart from vlan1<>eth0)
+ vlan1 IPv4 K8                                            SSH Remote
Terminal  local
+ vlan1 IPv4 SFTP File Transfer on K8                      SFTP File
Transfer   local
+ vlan1 IPv4 K8 [XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX]                        Workstation
       local
+ vlan1 IPv4 GW [XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX]                        Workstation
       local

GW does not appear to advertise the SSH/SFTP records, with the same:

- avahi version (actually, exact same binaries)
- avahi config files
- dbus version (binaries)
- dbus config files

It looks just too easy to point fingers to switch, vlan or multicast
problems, but in that case, the output would be on one of them
different?  Or at least the normal .local registration wouldn't work
either, I guess.

The strace is quite lengthy, and I'm not sure it's useful at all;
running avahi-daemon *does* say on both machines:

...
Loading service file /services/sftp-ssh.service
Loading service file /services/ssh.service
...

On GW, however, this is the last message:

...
Server startup complete. Host name is GW.local. Local service cookie is N.
Registering HINFO record with values 'IN86'/'LINUX'.
...

On K8 the following comes up after that in a few seconds:
...
Service "K8" (/services/ssh.service) successfully established.
Service "SFTP File Transfer on K8" (/services/sftp-ssh.service)
successfully established.
...

I was not yet able to discover why doesn't GW want to "establish
successfully" the ssh services.

When watched closely, GW does send out registration requests(?) only
once (and receives it back correctly).  K8 does this cycle two more
times then announces "successfully established".

Is avahi on GW confused by the extra vlan interfaces?  The ppp
interface?  The IP-less eth interface?  Why is basic .local name
registration working?  Is this a bug, or a feature?

How can I help resolve this?  It's somewhat annoying to not be able use bssh :)

Thanks,
Janos

(I hope noone receives a duplicate of this; the earlier messages were
promised to have been rejected.)